Agile Project Management Course Assessment

Assessment Scheme

• Quizzes: 3 (every 2 weeks) = 45%
• Assignments: 3 (as announced) = 25%
• Final Exam: 1 (last week) = 20%

Reference Materials

• Layton, M.C., Ostermiller, S.J., and Kynaston, D.J. (2020) Agile Project Management for Dummies, 3rd Edition, Wiley.
• Highsmith, J. (2010) Agile Project Management: Creating Innovative Products, 2nd Edition, Pearson.
• PMI. (2017) Agile Practice Guide, Project Management Institute Inc.
• Cohn, M. (2006) Agile Estimating and Planning, Prentice Hall.
• Goncalves, M. and Heda, R. (2010) Fundamentals of Agile Project Management: An Overview, ASME Press.

Modernizing Project Management

• A project is a planned program of work that requires a definitive amount of time, effort, and planning to complete.
• Projects have goals and objectives and often must be completed in a fixed period of time and within a certain budget.
• Agile is a descriptor of a mindset approach to project management that focuses on early delivery of business value, continuous improvement of the product being created and the processes used to create the product, scope flexibility, team input, and delivering well-tested products that reflect customer needs.

The Origins of Modern Project Management

• Around the time of World War II, researchers started creating formal project management processes.
• The first processes were based on step-by-step manufacturing models used by the United States military during World War II.

Understanding the Agile Manifesto

• In the mid-1990s, the Internet was changing the world, and development teams explored alternatives to outdated approaches to project management.
• In February 2001, 17 methodology pioneers met in Snowbird, Utah, to share their experiences, ideas, and practices, and to discuss how to improve software development.
• They constructed the Agile Manifesto, Agile Principles, and the Agile Alliance.

Understanding the Agile Manifesto

• The Agile Manifesto values individuals and interactions over processes and tools, working software over comprehensive documentation, customer collaboration over contract negotiation, and responding to change over following a plan.
• The creators of the Agile Manifesto originally focused on software development, but agile techniques have spread beyond software development and even outside computer-related products.
• Agile approaches are disrupting various industries, including biotech, manufacturing, aerospace, engineering, marketing, building construction, finance, shipping, automotive, utility, and energy.

Outlining the Four Values of the Agile Manifesto

• Value 1: Individuals and interactions over processes and tools.
  • Value people over process and tools.
  • Human-centric and participatory approaches can be readily adapted to new ideas and innovations.
• Value 2: Working software over comprehensive documentation.
  • Focus on producing working functionality.
  • Working software means the software meets the definition of done: developed, tested, integrated, and documented.
• Value 3: Customer collaboration over contract negotiation.
  • The customer is not the enemy.
  • Collaborate with customers to understand their needs and deliver value.